Winter III

“Good Gods, man, you can’t simply fire arrows at them. You have to let them finish the monologue first, otherwise it’s simply unsporting.”
– Aldred Alban of Callow, the Prince Errant

The White Knight did not enjoy fighting beasts.

It was not something particular to Hanno’s Name, his study of his predecessors had made that much evident. Those of his titular forbears born to Callow, in particular, had often taken such fights as their specialty. There was sense to it, as traditionally rivalry with the Black Knights of Praes belonged to Shining Princes or Princesses. Many a flying fortress or ritually spawned monster had died to the blade of a White Knight, even as the Legions of Terror were scattered by radiant royalty. Yet west of the Whitecaps, White Knights had long been known as first and foremost killers of villains. In time of crusade they rose to higher prominence still, but that was rarer affair and in the greater scheme of things one late to the history of Calernia. Indeed, most of the White Knight memories Hanno had recalled centred around strife against agents of Below. Hanno himself considered his aspects and training to have suited him to a great variety of works, but most deeply so to fighting Named. His dislike came not from a difficulty in fight beasts, even so.

But, he reflected even as he smashed  a table’s foot and let the momentum flip it up as a manner of greatshield – just in time for torrent of greasy liquid to splash against it and start eating through with noxious fumes – more that whenever he found himself doing so collateral damage became inevitable. The more removed from the plans fate had for them a hero acted, the more stiff and resisting Creation became. Hanno kicked down the warping table before it could get in his way, glancing up in time to see the Dead King’s monstrous winged vanguard further tearing through the roof.  The greasy liquid it had spewed was likely poisonous as well as acidic, but that was not the most inconvenient aspect. The Dead King was fond of using such creations as transports for lesser dead, and this one was no exception: even as the greasy wetness ate at the floor, the dozen fleshy abominations that’d been vomited out with the liquid began to shape themselves into legged creatures with wet squelches. Most people would have been struck with deep fear and disgust as such a sight, but this hall was filled with veterans of the war against Keter.

They’d all seen worse, and like as not those sights still haunted dreams. So instead before five heartbeats had passed every royal in the hall had a blade in hand, Princess Rozala Malanza called out for a shield wall and the retinues formed up with finely-honed discipline. There was a reason that even in the heart of Cleves, behind tall walls and sturdy gates and thousands of guards, every single person here had worn armour. The Enemy’s reach was long, clever and ever-changing. They had all been taught that lesson the hard way.

“Archers, ready a volley,” Princess Rozala said, tone even.

Even before the arrows flew Hanno knew they would have little effect, the following beats proved him right. Steel pierced into the shifting flesh, but there was no blood to spill nor organs to break and so the projectiles had little practical purpose.

“Your Graces,” the White Knight said, “I would invite you to withdraw to the Low Keep.”

Which was close, and halfway underground. The remains of a fortress that predated Alamans presence this far north, he’d been given to understand, and one very stoutly built. The beast would not find that structure as easy to rip into. Pride and fear warred within the royalty he’d addressed, for though they liked not the notion of retreating they were not unaware that from this hall they could do nothing. With siege engines from the city, yes, and by bringing every priest in the city to bear against this great monster. But arrows shot from here would not even merit attention, and their lives were likely to be why the beast had come to this hall at all. It was the Princes of Cleves within who the war was most decisively fought, and it was pride that won.

“Lord White, we will not abandon you to face that creature alone,” Prince Gaspard thundered back. “I yet rule this city and-”

With a groan the ceiling the great hall came off entirely, the roar of the beast above them all drowning out the words of the Prince of Cleves. When it passed, Hanno spoke again.

“Withdraw, Your Grace,” the White Knight simply said. “And do not worry of my fighting alone.”

Providence punctuated his sentence by a massive streak of lightning screaming down from cloudy skies, Antigone’s working ripping straight through the back of the beast and all the way out its belly. More of the poisonous liquid spilled out, and animated corpses with it. A heartbeat later, falling from the sky in the wake of the blinding light, an armoured silhouette wielding a great trident landed on the beast’s back. The Myrmidon was in good form today, Hanno noted. The White Knight took a measured step forward, sword rising as he watched the fleshy creatures take what seemed to be their war-shape: a tall, bent humanoid silhouette with strangely gleaming claws on the ‘hands’ and feet. Thin, he saw, and so suspected they’d be agile as well as blindly quick. Assassins, these, not warriors. The Dead King sought fresh crowns added to his tally. The arrows earlier shot into them were on the ground, now, like they’d been spit out by the shifting bodies.

“Well?” Hanno politely asked them. “Shall we proceed?”

In ghostly silence the creatures moved, and he moved to meet them. Behind him he finally heard the Procerans withdrawing as he had requested, shield wall tightening to block the back of the hall. It would not be enough, not against ritual-made killers like this. Of the dozen foes, a mere four were heading towards him, falling forward on four legs and they ran like terrible hounds. The rest made to scatter around him, moving so swiftly they found no difficulty in treading tables and walls like they were the ground. Breathing out, the White Knight let Light flood his veins. Control, patience, and timing. This he had learned from his defeats, that with skill little was needed to accomplish much. Light glinting on the edge of his sword, Hanno took a single step forward and a sudden extension of his arm had the tip of his blade piercing the leading abomination’s belly. His Name’s power pulsed and then the creature was burning away like a leaf lit aflame, for the necromancy that moved it was no proof to disturbance by Light.

With a step to the side his stance shifted, and he took a second through the knee. It shed its own limb, flesh boiling as it surrendered a limb before the burn of Light could swallow it all, but the backswing carved it through the torso. Hanno smoothly finished his pivot, facing the opposite of where he’d begun, and with a step towards there thrust through the back of a third creature. He tamped down on the power he’d slid along his sword, adjusting it to what he gauged to be strictly necessary to the effect. He did not know how long this battle would last, and power wasted was power he might lack when wielding it might have saved lives. The last of the four that’d come towards him opened a mouth where there should have been a stomach and spat out a mouthful of foul black liquid at him. A flicker of Light down to his back leg, using that to push himself forward at speed – a favourite trick of the Flawless Fencer, which he has carefully learned to reproduce without drawing on her memories – the angle he craned his torso forward at carefully measured so the gob would pass over his shoulder. Hanno’s blade carved right through, the Light on the edge of it making the process closer to a warm knife through butter than steel through flesh. The remaining eight had passed him, as he’d anticipated. Four on each side, all heading towards the still-open door at the back of the hall the princes and princesses had retreated through.

Numbers needed to be brought down, lest at least one succeed at squeezing through.

“Ride,” the White Knight said.

He’d been refining his use of the aspect for months now, ever since the battle at the Red Flower Vales. Hanno leapt forward even as he spoke, Light roiling violently beneath him and forming into a horse already at a gallop – the trick had been learning to make it come from his legs, so that he would already be astride the horse and not need additional movement. The lance of Light formed around his free hand and in the blink of an eye he’d crossed the hall on horseback, the tip of the lance tearing through an abomination crawling up against the wall and breaking as it killed it. That part of the sequence still frustrated him, for the ephemeral had made it impossible to make the weapon more durable even if he’d since figured out how to make it other armaments than a lance. Dismissing the aspect, he did not allow it to simply disperse as he once had: the Light he claimed, for it was own, drew it back to him and then precisely released it.

Grey Pilgrims used prayers and hymns, when drawing on Shine to similar purpose, though Tariq was skilled enough to sometimes dispense with this. The Peregrine still lived however, so it had been by digging through a dozen past Pilgrim lives, three Preachers Militant of Atalante and an ancient Sage of the West that Hanno had crafted a method that was manipulation of extant Light without spoken word, though at the expense of delicate control. The broken mount of Light pulsed, once, and split into three thick javelins that flew out. They tore through tables and glasses and seats as they went, unerringly finding and tearing into the other three abominations on his side. A heartbeat later, all that remained was cinder. The last four abominations, swift-footed and still silent, reached the Proceran shield wall a heartbeat later. Bodies rising above the rim of the shields, flesh swallowing the swung swords without harm, two of the creatures leaned over the shields and quickly punctured the heads of the Proceran soldiers before them. Another simply ignored the soldiery by continuing to run against the wall as it went around them, and the last impossibly leapt above the soldiers and straight to the gates.

It flew back a moment later, missing half its body, and the Valiant Champion entered the fray.

“Gloryful day,” Raphaella cheerfully bellowed. “Axe for all!”

The Champion would be able to prevent the last three from going any further, Hanno knew, and the greater threat here was admittedly the beast above. Yet she was not so quick she would be able to put down the last three without more soldiers from the hall dying. Leaving her to the fighting now would mean the certainty of dead soldiers for purposes uncertain, and so he would have to trust Antigone and the Myrmidon to handle the situation a while longer.

“Take the wall-crawler,” the White Knight ordered.

She did not answer, nor did she need to. They had fought at each other’s side long enough that he trusted her implicit. The two who’d already kill soldiers had followed their assault by crouching down again and slithering through the now open ranks of soldiers, raking claws and spitting venom as they did. A flicker of Light down his back leg, knowledge of that trick courtesy of a woman long dead, and the White Knight was moving again. Boots whispering across the floor, he barreled through the soldiers in his way without so much a speck of the sinuous, unnatural fluidity of the foes he pursed. Better bruises than death, he believed. A flicker of movement caught his eye, the abomination closest having pressed all the way down against the ground as it tried to pass through and, striking out suddenly, he nailed it to the floor with a downward thrust. His instincts screamed and he ducked, a gleaming claw ripping through where he had been standing. Having missed its opening the creature tried to retreat, but only revealed its position in doing so.

Tossing aside the young soldier in his way like he was made of feathers, the White Knight grunted in effort as he threw himself forward. Wreathing his gauntleted hand in Light, Hanno dug into the squirming abomination’s torso and let the blinding touch of the Heavens sunder the sorcery animating it. Returning to his feet a heartbeat after, he rose to learn that the Valiant Champion had meanwhile, found another weakness to these creatures: repeated partition would cause them to collapse like the touch of the Light. Hanno offered his hand to the soldier he’d tackled down, helping the young man back up, and patted his shoulder.

“Thank you, lord,” the man said.

“It is everyone’s war,” the White Knight calmly replied. “We are in it together. Champion?”

“Is me,” Raphaella volunteered.

“Best we get at that beast soon,” Hanno said. “The kind of sorcery the Witch would use to destroy it would destroy large swaths of the city as well.”

And though the Valiant Champion did not much concern herself with details like this, or Antigone for that matter, Hanno was well aware that the treasuries of Procer were like leaking sieves these days. The Principate was beggaring itself simply trying to keep afloat, and the foremost city-stronghold of the Cleves front being half a smoking ruin would only quicken the trouble. Not to mention smoking ruins were hard to defend against assault, and the Dead were not yet expelled from Cleves.

“Is dragon,” Raphaella firmly told him.

He flicked a long glance at the monster. It was massive and winged, this was true, and bearing great claws. Yet it did not seem capable of breathing fire, and its scales were not those of a lizard as those of dragons were. To his eye they were instead closer to the chitinous shine of an insect’s carapace, and much too large to be a dragon’s since every scale was no smaller than a heater shield. Likely they would be easier to break as well, though the flesh beneath could not truly be wounded like a dragon’s would be. Undeath was limiting in some ways, but the Enemy was clever in employing its few advantages to great effect.

“It has some distant similarities,” Hanno said.

“Is dragon,” the Valiant Champion cheerfully said, “and I going to slay it.”

Ah. Well, that did explain the insistence. Heroes of the Dominion had a distinct taste for the kind of deeds that’d been the staple of heroics at the peak of the Age of Wonders, he’d noticed. Such customs had poorly aged, in a Calernia where there were so few dark or savage corners left. Yet he would not argue against the truth that Raphaella had a way of eagerly brutalizing monsters that would make even other heroes hesitate. In some ways, Hanno considered the Named of the Dominion to have best taken to the war against Keter. How long that would last, however, he was uncertain. For though Levant’s sons and daughters were known for their bravery, they were not known for their stomach for long, gruelling wars. The old heroics took the shape of a splash of glory and an elegant exit, while the struggle against Keter instead promised to be a brutal, protracted grind.

“We can debate that later,” Hanno said. “First we need to get to-”

Through the open ceiling the beast’s massive head came down, struck by an unseen force, and even as a deafening roar sounded and a gaping maw filled with great fangs opened to reveal advancing armoured undead, the White Knight reflected that on occasion providence could have a truly rotten sense of humour.

“As planned I,” the Valiant Champion smugly said.

“Just as planned,” he absent-mindedly corrected.

“No, you just,” Raphaella patiently said. “I valiant. This not difficult, Hanno.”

The White Knight opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He’d known for some time that the Champion greatly enjoyed making sport of others, particularly those she considered friends, but to this day he was uncertain exactly how much of her attitude was a pretence. Besides, the dead were beginning to march out of the monster’s gullet. Dripping in the greasy liquid that should by all rights eat right through them and their armaments, for the Dead King was nothing if not a thorough enemy. The two of them limbered wrists and shoulders as they began to advance towards the enemy.

“I have idea,” the Valiant Champion said.

“You can’t keep getting eaten by creatures to kill them from the inside,” the White Knight sternly replied.

Hanno honestly suspected that the acid in this one’s stomach was the result of Dead King’s rising irritation at how successful Raphaella had found that tactic to be. Not to mention Christophe, whose unrivalled ability to take punishment had seen Antigone adopting the tactic of forcefully cramming him down such monsters several times now. The way Dominion heroes kept referring to this as ‘Proceran stuffing’ only added insult to injury for the Mirror Knight, though after soldiers had seen him walk out of the smoking remains of a thirty-feet tall undead ape creature without a scratch his reputation had reached new heights.

“Is from Book of All Things,” the Champion assured him.

“I asked the Peregrine about these alleged differences of text in the Levant, did you know?” he casually asked.

“Oh no, enemy close,” the Valiant Champion hurriedly said. “Talk later.”

She hastened forward, barreling into the first group of emerging undead with her shield and greataxe raised. Though the acidic grease was eating at the edge of her axe, it hardly mattered with undead. Shattering them was often more practical an approach anyway, and the sheer weight of what the Champion wielded paired with her strength ensured any blow would at least knock the foe down. The great winged beast tried to rise again from its prone position, screaming in anger, but whatever great working Antigone had used on it was keeping it pinned to the ground. He was pleased to see she’d listened to the talks he’d made all heroes in Cleves sit down for on the subject of fighting within fortresses and cities: pinning down great monsters instead of batting them around not only limited damage, it also allowed their own side to put their own advantage to work. With every moment more priests and mages from the garrison would be gathering, more siege weapons and soldiers with oil or pitch.

Still, the Dead King had ensured that wherever this abomination landed its maw could serve as a beachhead. With Raphaella and himself facing the open maw serving as the gate, it then fell to them to hold the line while the rest of Cleves gathered the might to unmake this beast. Yet before Hanno could step forward and lend his blade to the toil of wiping out the remaining dead, an armoured shape leapt down into the group the Champion was swatting around. The Myrmidon wasted no movements in sweeping away the last few dead, her trident glinting with Light. She offered a muted salute with her weapon as he approached, quite unnecessary to the proceedings. Until the undead began to pour out in earnest, anyway. This band of a mere twenty seemed to have been a mere vanguard, by the lack of follow-up.

“Myrmidon,” Hanno greeted the heroine, and she nodded back. “How fares the rest of the city?”

“This is the sole beast,” she told him. “Other undead were spilled out when its belly was opened, but the Vagrant Spear and the Mirror Knight have them contained.”

Only one beast? Though the White Knight suspected that creating such a construct must have been horrendously difficult and expensive, he had still expected it would be one among a flock or at least a pair. Perhaps the vanguard of a greater assault, for mighty as the creature was it was no match for the number of heroes currently in Cleves. The garrison of the city alone would have been enough to repel it, in his opinion, though significant casualties would be incurred. If this was plain to him, it ought to be the same to the Dead King. That had implications.

“This is a distraction,” Hanno said. “Keter sent something after the royals while this drew our attention, as it sent ghouls after those in Hainaut.”

“The Repentant Magister went to attend to them,” the Myrmidon told him. “Alone.”

It should be enough to slow down whatever had been sent, but he must hurry.

“Raphaella-” he began.

“- I stay on dragon,” the Champion interrupted. “Go.”

He nodded his thanks, extending a similar courtesy to the Myrmidon, and set out as fast as his feet could carry him.

It would end in the Low Keep, one way or another.